2 Successful Weeks in First Grade!

     Well it's "another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody"..... Yes my two birdies flew the nest and I'm home with our sweet kitty Ziti.  My two kids are happy and thriving at SUNY Potsdam and the momma bird is smiling  :)
     My head has been spinning for the last month with the beginning of school process.  I have a terrific class of 6 girls and 12 boys.  We have been working on routines, routines, and more routines.  It is hard getting used to a new schedule with it's A week,  B week, C week, and math/language intervention switches.  I'll never keep them all straight.  I'll just show up every day and go with the flow!
      We tried out our new ipod touches this past week.  "Fun...easy....love 'em....we get to use these every day!"  to quote a few first graders.  Check out the concentration on these fantastic first graders as you see the ipod touches in action.

  We have been working on our PBIS skills and have been practicing to be safe, respectful, and responsible every day.  We earn coins and keep them in plastic cups inside our desks.    We counted our coins on Friday and everyone earned a fantastic first grader bracelet!  It's very colorful!  I am so proud of my class.  We have been working on building a happy school community in our classroom and enjoy having our fabulous gym teacher, Mr. Lumsden join our class each morning.  We are learning about each other every day.  We now know that red, blue, yellow, and green are favorite colors and steak, macaroni and cheese, and pizza, are our most favorite foods.  Mr. Lumsden shared a new greeting called the People Picker.  We find a friend, greet them and make a connection.  Thanks for adding some spice to our community Mr. Lumsden :)
   During our writing workshop (thanks to Leah Mermelstein) we have been working on sketching and labeling our pictures.  It has been a lot of fun to try some simple drawing and labeling.  This week we had a guest artist sketch for us.  It was none-other than our own Julia.  She and I talked about her teaching the class how to draw her baby bird in the nest.  I built up her arrival and everyone was feeling the excitement.  I kept checking to hall to see if she was coming.  I had Julia pass out the papers and ta da It's Julia!!!  Here she is in action!  She did a marvelous job!  Everyone was able to follow along quite easily.  I'll be looking for another artist in residence very soon!

      On Friday, we couldn't make it to the computer lab, so we try out the Netbooks instead!  We all got smarter!!  Computer Class is always exciting, but using a mini laptops is even more thrilling.  Everyone followed along and stretched their listening and concentration skills.  It is hard to boot up a computer for the first time and find all the right keys.  Reading skills will come in handy for these little techies.  It was hard working a mouse pad.  We learned that you need to use two hands to be efficient at navigating a Netbook. We were all able to navigate to a favorite first grade website Starfall.com.  Here we all are on the Netbooks.    I think they are tech-o-lishous!

Thanks for stopping by to check out the first grade smarties.

Claire